The Teacher eBook

1. A large number of young persons of your age,
and in circumstances similar to those in which you
are placed, perform with some fidelity their various
outward duties, but maintain no habitual and daily
communion with God. It is very wrong for them
to live thus without God, but they do not see, or,
rather, do not feel the guilt of it. They only
think of their accountability to human beings
like themselves; for example, their parents, teachers,
brothers and sisters, and friends. Consequently,
they think most of their external conduct, which
is all that human beings can see. Their i>hearts_
are neglected, and become very impure, full of evil
thoughts, and desires, and passions, which are not
repented of, and consequently not forgiven. Now
what I wish to accomplish in regard to all my pupils
is, that they should begin to feel their accountability
to God, and to act according to it; that they
should explore their hearts, and ask God’s
forgiveness for all their past sins, through Jesus
Christ, who died for them that they might be forgiven;
and that they should from this time try to live near
to God, feel his presence, and enjoy that solid
peace and happiness which flows from a sense of his
protection. When such a change takes place, it
relieves the mind from that constant and irritating
uneasiness which the great mass of mankind feel as
a constant burden; the ceaseless forebodings of a
troubled conscience reproaching them for their past
accumulated guilt, and warning them of a judgment to
come. The change which I endeavor to promote
relieves the heart both of the present suffering and
of the future danger.

After endeavoring to induce you to begin to act from
Christian principle, I wish to explain to you your
various duties to yourselves, your parents, and to
God.

2. The measures to which I resort to accomplish
these objects are three:

First, Religious Exercises in School.—­We
open and close the school with a very short prayer
and one or two verses of a hymn. Sometimes I
occupy ten or fifteen minutes at one of the general
exercises, or at the close of the school, in giving
instruction upon practical religious duty. The
subjects are sometimes suggested by a passage of Scripture
read for the purpose, but more commonly in another
way.

You will observe often, at the close of the school
or at an appointed general exercise, that a scholar
will bring to my desk a dark-colored morocco wrapper
containing several small strips of paper, upon which
questions relating to moral or religious duty, or subjects
for remarks from me, or anecdotes, or short statements
of facts, giving rise to inquiries of various kinds,
are written. This wrapper is deposited in a place
accessible to all the scholars, and any one who pleases
deposits in it any question or suggestion on religious
subjects which may occur to her. You can at any
time do this yourself, thus presenting any doubt,
or difficulty, or inquiry which may at any time occur
to you.